In contrast to the previous truism held by Speaker Tip O’Neill, who maintained that all politics are local, the most important takeaway from this year’s unfolding GOP nomination process (apart from Donald Trump’s supremacy, of course) is that everything is now on a global scale.
As Trump’s supporters search the election map for more favourable ground, Nikki Haley—the final major challenger—faces a big problem.
As a result of the rapid pace of news coverage, the decline of local news, and the carpet bombing of the early states by political action committees, regional peculiarities and pet causes have been eroded. No longer is it relevant to make stops along the Pizza Ranch circuit in Iowa and to slog through snowpacks in New Hampshire while undertaking the diner-to-town hall dash.
Finally, how came the same candidate to win a tough primary with the support of almost 230,000 voters in two completely different states?
Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, stated that “we’ve nationalised and so tribalized ourselves on social media — and the ability to communicate directly with voters goes around that filter — that Tip O’Neill’s old rules do not apply.” I completely agree.
The result, according to Madrid, is a depressing uniformity in American politics that goes beyond national boundaries.
According to Madrid, who is currently working on a book about this trend, there is a strong argument that white rural voters in Pennsylvania who do not have a college degree have more in common with rural voters in England who do not have a college degree and voted for Brexit than with voters in more diverse urban cores, such as college-educated voters in New York and London.
Going away with the state-specific borders? Right when Haley needs it most, she becomes the favourite daughter in her home state of South Carolina, where she served as governor for two terms and enjoyed widespread support. Upon her return to the state following her loss in New Hampshire, Haley reminded her supporters, “you have been with me before.” There is, however, an explanation for why she is trailing Trump by 30 points in her native state.
The first South Carolina primary has “been nationalised since last year,” according to Republican state senator Josh Kimbrell, who supported Trump until endorsing Ron DeSantis.
The support of her old political friends might not be enough to swing the contest in her favour. Even with the backing of Bob Vander Plaats’ evangelical machine and the popular Republican governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, DeSantis was unable to win the first caucus state. Even although New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu vigorously campaigned for Haley in his home state the week after, it wasn’t sufficient. Trump received more than half of the vote in both states.
This seems to be the case in South Carolina as well, according to the polls. According to Kimbrell, Haley’s tenure as governor is dulled in this nationalised setting.
“I really doubt she can unseat South Carolina,” Kimbrell stated. “The former president is going to win by a wide margin.”
Even with his lauded ground strategy, famous endorsements, and dogged determination to accomplish “Iowa the right way,” DeSantis managed to win exactly zero counties in Iowa. Despite spending tens of millions of dollars in the state, Trump easily won the election. This amount is more than five times more than what Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Trump, and John Kasich spent on Super Tuesday combined in 2016.
Democratic strategist David Kochel lamented that “all the money in the world, 99-county tours and endorsements by the biggest political leader in the state and the biggest evangelical leader in the state was not enough to beat Donald Trump” in the state’s recent presidential election. This is covered extensively by both liberal and conservative news outlets on cable news, as if it were a major national story. When that happens, people tend to follow suit.
Even though the electorate in New Hampshire was very different, they still managed to do it. No Mavericks required.
Despite what Haley said, New Hampshire did not “correct” Iowa’s vote. Despite the fact that Haley and her associates spent millions on the state’s campaign.
Conventional New Hampshire campaigning, which involved visiting people’s homes to meet prospective voters in the hopes that they would spread the word, is now in its last stages. There was a dramatic decrease in campaign engagement with voters: Among likely Republican primary voters questioned in the final days of the campaign, only 23% reported receiving personal contact from someone urging them to back a candidate, according to a Monmouth University-Washington Post poll. The percentage of Republican primary voters who reported being individually contacted dropped significantly from 49% in February 2016 to 39% in this latest survey.
Voters have been left with whatever comes into their living rooms or flashes across their screens on any given night in the absence of a welcoming door knock from a familiar face—or any face, for that matter: This video features Trump in a courtroom, as well as various talking heads discussing Trump and an advertisement from a super PAC.
